In brief, this partnership with ORCID will resolve ambiguity in researcher identification caused by name changes, cultural differences in name presentation, and the inconsistent use of name abbreviations, thereby ensuring their contributions are appropriately recognized and credited.

This issue highlights the very best work from scientists in the early stages of their independent career. This issue follows the great success of our 2014 Emerging Investigators Issue, as we have been overwhelmed by the community’s positive response.

This year’s issue includes a broad selection of reviews in various areas of chemistry, from catalysis to nanomedicine, together with materials and theoretical chemistry. Covering a wide geographic diversity – the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania – this issue also features our contributors’ profiles, with varied bios and colourful backgrounds including exciting barbecues, thrilling video games, vibrant Queen concerts and unforgettable Playmobils®!

Nominations are open for these journal lectureships – only one entry needed per nominee, as each nomination will be considered for both competitions as appropriate.

ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship
• Recognises emerging scientists in the early stages of their independent academic career
• Eligible nominees should have completed their PhD on or after the 15th September 2008, and should also have published as least one article in ChemComm during the course of their independent career

Chem Soc Rev Emerging Investigator Lectureship
• Recognises emerging scientists who have made significant contributions to their research field
• Eligible nominees should have completed their PhD on or after the 15th September 2008

Lectureship details
• Recipients of these lectureships will each be invited to present a lecture at three different locations over a 12-month period, with at least one of these events taking place at an international conference.
• Each recipient will receive a contribution of £1500 towards travel and accommodation costs for their lectures, as well as a certificate.
• Recipients will be asked to contribute a review article for the specific journal awarding their lectureship.

How to nominate
Self-nomination is not permitted. Nominators must send the following to the editorial team viachemcomm-rsc@rsc.org OR chemsocrev-rsc@rsc.org by Monday, 30 January 2017. Each nomination will be considered for both lectureships.
• Recommendation letter, including the name, contact details and website URL of the nominee.
• A one-page CV for the nominee, including their date of birth, summary of education, career and key achievements, a list of up to five of their top independent publications, total numbers of publications and patents, and other indicators of esteem, together with evidence of career independence.
• A copy of the candidate’s best publication to date (as judged by the nominator).
• Two supporting letters of recommendation from two independent referees. These should not be someone from the same institution or the candidate’s post doc or PhD supervisor.

The nominator and independent referees should comment on the candidate’s presenting skills.

Incomplete nominations or those not adhering to the above requirements will not be considered, and nominees will not be contacted regarding any missing or incorrect documents.

Selection procedure
• The editorial team will screen each nomination for eligibility and draw up a shortlist of candidates based on the nomination documents provided.
• Shortlisted candidates will be asked to provide a brief supporting statement summarising their key achievements, highlighting the impact of their work and justifying why they deserve the specific lectureship for which they have been entered.
• Recipients of each lectureship will then be selected and endorsed by a selection panel composed of members of each journal’s Editorial Board. Winners of the lectureships will be announced in the first half of 2017.

NB: Please note that members of the selection panel from the ChemComm and Chem Soc Rev Editorial Boards are not eligible to nominate, or provide references, for these lectureships.

]]>http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/11/01/journal-lectureships-2017-nominations-open/feed/0CRISPR-Cas9 and the evolution of targeted genomic engineeringhttp://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/10/17/crispr-cas9-and-the-evolution-of-targeted-genomic-engineering/
http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/10/17/crispr-cas9-and-the-evolution-of-targeted-genomic-engineering/#respondMon, 17 Oct 2016 10:59:44 +0000http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/?p=2626Advances in the development of genomic engineering have unprecedented potential to make significant impacts on the future of health and research. Since their development, genetic editing tools have become a major hot topic not only within the scientific community but also with the general public. Precise and facile methods of modifying gene sequences provide us with the ability to understand and even cure some of our deadliest genetic diseases however, this has also raised ethical questions as to what can (and perhaps should) be achieved.

In their most basic form, genome editing technologies are proteins that can cleave DNA in a site specific manner and cause alterations such as inactivation of specific genes, correction of mutated sequences or insertion of intact genes into a target DNA sequence. This cumulates into a downstream phenotypic change within the cell that not only allows biologists to study normal gene function but also carries tremendous therapeutic relevance.

A recent Tutorial Review by Debojyoti Chakraborty and Souvik Maiti published in Chemical Society Reviews describes the development, evolution and future of genetic editing technologies and molecular tools such as zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), site specific recombinases, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). Of those listed, the CRISPR-Cas9 system is by far the most precise, efficient, inexpensive and easy-to-use tool for genetic manipulation and has been proven to work on virtually any living cell in almost any organism. In the short amount of time since its development, CRISPR-Cas9 has reinvented the way in which scientists are carrying out genetic research and approaching gene therapy.

CRISPR-Cas9 is distinct from conventional gene therapies which are often only capable of crudely placing genetic material at a random location within the cell. The idea behind CRISPR-Cas9’s mechanism and its precision is derived from innate bacterial immune systems which use arrays of short repeats in the microbial genome, termed CRISPR, to protect themselves from foreign genetic material. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is made up of the Cas9 protein that snips the DNA strands and an RNA component that directs the complex to the correct sequence. The cell’s natural machinery then repairs the cut but it is error-prone and will likely make a mistake that will result in termination of that gene’s function. This allows scientists to determine the gene’s role in cellular function. An interesting example of this was recently published in Chemical Science by Peter Leadlay of Cambridge University and Yuhui Sun of Wuhan University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences anddescribes the application of this genomics-based approach in determining the biosynthetic pathway of thiotetronate antibiotics. Alternatively, the cut can be repaired using a DNA template provided by the researchers to edit nearly any sequence at any site in the genome.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been demonstrated in numerous studies to be a highly efficient tool for gene-editing and has resulted in significant advancements within the field of genomics. There are however, as with any new technology, limitations and gaps in our understanding that need to be addressed before clinical applications can be considered. Unsurprisingly, a lot of research is being focused on tackling these issues. The potential to rewrite the human genome to alter disease states, perhaps enhance our ability to fight infectious diseases and even alter pathways involved in aging is incredible but will inevitably come with a spectrum of ethical, social and intellectual challenges. In any case, these are exciting times and these inventions stand to change the future of medicine.

Victoria Corless is currently completing her Ph.D. in organic chemistry with Prof. Andrei Yudin at The University of Toronto. Her research is centred on the synthesis of kinetically amphoteric molecules, which offer a versatile platform for the development of chemoselective transformations with particular emphasis on creating novel biologically active molecules.

The prestigious Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded jointly to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for their outstanding contributions to the design and synthesis of molecular machines. Many congratulations to all of them!

To mark this special occasion, we would like to highlight our most recent review on this area:

]]>http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/10/05/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-2016/feed/0Top 10 Reviewers for Chemical Society Reviewshttp://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/09/23/top-10-reviewers-for-chemical-society-reviews/
http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/09/23/top-10-reviewers-for-chemical-society-reviews/#respondFri, 23 Sep 2016 09:33:13 +0000http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/?p=2595In celebration of Peer Review Week, with the theme of Recognition for Review, we would like to highlight the top 10 reviewers for Chemical Society Reviews in 2016, as selected by the editor for their significant contribution to the journal.

We would like to say a massive thank you to these reviewers as well as the Chemical Society Reviews board and all of the chemistry community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

He graduated from the University of Lisbon in 2004 and completed his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford, UK in 2008 under the supervision of Professor Ben Davis working on reaction engineering for site-selective protein modification. He then undertook postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany under the guidance of Prof Peter Seeberger. He currently leads a research group at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge where he holds a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship.

Did you know? Gonçalo kept a trip diary of his SAFEA-RSC Visiting Researcher Programme China, where he gave the first talk of his Chem Soc Rev Emerging Investigators Lectureship tour earlier this year.

Guihua will next be speaking at the ACS symposium “ENFL: 2D Materials: Graphene & Beyond & their Device Applications” in Philadelphia on 24 August 2016, where he will be formally awarded with his Lectureship certificate.

Watch this place for more details soon!

Meet the team:

Dr Jeanne Andres (Deputy Editor of Chemical Society Reviews) will be attending the Fall ACS meeting in Philadelphia. She would love to hear about your research and meet with our readers, authors and referees. Please do get in touch with Jeanne if you would like to arrange a meeting in advance.

]]>http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/07/19/2016-emerging-investigator-lectureship-guihua-yu/feed/0Chem Soc Rev Impact factor soars high at 34.09http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/06/28/chem-soc-rev-impact-factor-2015-soars-high/
http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/2016/06/28/chem-soc-rev-impact-factor-2015-soars-high/#respondTue, 28 Jun 2016 13:59:09 +0000http://blogs.rsc.org/cs/?p=2544number one in general chemistry]]>It is with great pleasure that we announce that Chem Soc Rev’s Impact factor has risen to 34.09 – its highest ever – according to the latest citation data released by Thomson Reuters in its 2015 Journal Citation Reports®.

With this, we maintain our position as the second top journal in multidisciplinary chemistry – thank you to all of our authors, referees, readers, Associate Editors, and Editorial and Advisory Board members for being an essential part of Chem Soc Rev’s continuing success.

We are proud to be the home of high impact, succinct and reader-friendly reviews from across the breadth of the chemical sciences, with a truly international authorship and a global audience.

And with our Immediacy index at an all-time high of 9.592 – higher than those of our key competitors, and an impressive 26% increase from last year – we are on track to make an even bigger impact in years to come.

*The Impact factor provides an indication of the average number of citations per paper. Produced annually, Impact factors are calculated by dividing the number of citations in a year to articles published in the preceding two years, by the number of citeable articles published in the preceding two years. The journal Immediacy index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited, and is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in a given year by the number of articles published in that year. Data based on 2015 Journal Citation Reports®, (Thomson Reuters, 2016).